"Shaba is dying," had said the scribe who had conducted us to this place. "Do not speak long."
I regarded Shaba.
"Please, my friend," said Shaba to me, "forgive the manacles. But surely you must understand that they constitute a sensible precaution of my part."
About Shaba's neck, on a thin golden chain, hung a ring. It was heavy and golden, much too large for the finger of a man. In the ring was a silver plate. Opposite. the bezel, on the outside of the ring, was a circular, recessed switch.
"You display the ring boldly," I said.
Shaba touched the ring. On his right hand, now, he wore another ring, the fang ring, which, filled with kanda, I had seen earlier in Schendi. A scratch from that ring would destroy a kailiauk in a matter of seconds. "Do you think ill of me, Tarl Cabot?" he asked.
"You are a traitor to Priest-Kings," I said. "You have stolen the Tahari ring."
"I am a scribe, and a man of science and letters," said Shaba. "Surely you can understand the importance of the ring to me."
"It can bring wealth and power," I said.
"Such things are not of interest to me," said Shaba. The tribal stitching of tattoo marks on his dark face wrinkled with a smile. "But I do not expect you to believe that," he said.
"I do not," I said.
"How hard it is for two who do not share caste to understand one another," he said.
"Perhaps," I said.
"I took the ring for two reasons," he said. "First, it made possible the ascent of the Ua. Without it we should not have come this far. In many villages, and among hostile peoples, the demonstration of the power of the ring, as I had hoped, permitted us safe passage. On the river, I am afraid, I am regarded as something of a wizard. Had it not been for the ring I and my men would have been slain many times." He smiled at me. "My exploration of the Ua," he said, "would not have been possible without the ring."
"Surely you are aware that possession of the ring is dangerous," I said.
"I am well aware of that," he said. With his right hand he gestured about himself. He indicated the walls of the fortresslike enclosure within which he had ensconced himself and his men. Too, about this enclosure, at the foot of stairs leading from it, was a broad, shallow moat. Waters from the lake circulated through the city and fed this moat. In it, as had been demonstrated, by the hurling of a haunch of tarsk into the waters, crowded and schooling, were thousands of blue grunt. This fish, when isolated and swimming free in a river or lake, is not particularly dangerous. For a few days prior to the fullness of the major Gorean moon, however, it begins to school. It' then becomes extremely aggressive and ferocious. The haunch of tarsk hurled into the water of the moat, slung on a rope, had been devoured in a matter of Ihn. There had been a thrashing frenzy in the water and then the rope had been withdrawn, severed. The moat had been crossed by a small, floating wooden bridge, tied at each end. This had been built, being extended outward from the opposite shore, by Shaba's men. The effectiveness of the moat, aside from the barrier of the water itself, would become negligible with the passing of the full moon, until the next. The grunt, following the mating frenzy, synchronized with the full moon, would return to the lake. Given the habits of the fish I had little doubt but that this place was an ancient mating ground for them, for the grunt populations tend to return again and again to the places of their frenzy, wherever, usually in a lagoon or shallow place in a river, they may be. The grunt now schooling in the open moat, come in from the lake, could well be the posterity of grunt populations dating back to the time when the city was not in ruins but in the height of its glory and power. The grunt in the moat were for a time an effective barrier, but surely Shaba and his men realized that it must be temporary. Suddenly the hair on the back of my neck rose. I now understood the practicality of their present situation.
"You were waiting for us," I said.
"Of course," said Shaba. "And if you had not come by today, I do not know what we would have done."
"The wall of the grunt," I said. "It has protected you for some four or five days."
"It proved enough," said Shaba. "It gave you time to arrive.
"You have been followed by Kurii," I said.
"Yes," said Shaba. "That is our belief. We have, however, seen only tracks. I fear, even now, however, they may be gathering. They must be somewhere in the city."
"Your man was courageous to come and fetch us," I said.
"He is Ngumi," said Shaba. "He is courageous, indeed. We did not know if he would get through."
"I did not know a scribe could be so courageous." I said.
"There are brave men in all castes," said Shaba.
"We may have been permitted, however, to come through," I said.
"That Msaliti gain entrance to the fortification?" asked Shaba.
"Of course," I said.
"Perhaps," he said.
"You said," I said, "that you took the ring for two reasons, but you mentioned only one, that it facilitated your journey upon the Ua."
"Look there," said Shaba, indicating a table to one side, on which there lay a cylindrical leather case, with a leather cap, and four notebooks, heavy and bound with leather.
"I see," I said.
"There is a map case there," he said, "and my notebooks. I have, in my journey, charted the Ua, and in the notebooks I have recorded my observations. Those things, though you, of the warriors, may not understand this, are priceless."
"Your records would doubtless be of value, to geographers," I said.
"They are," said Shaba, "of inestimable value to all civilized men."
"Perhaps," I said.
"The maps, those records," said Shaba, "open up a new world. Think not only in terms of crass profit, my friend, of the bounties there to hunters and trappers, to traders and settlers, to planters and physicians, but to all men who wish to understand, who wish to know, who wish to unveil hidden secrets and penetrate hitherto unsolved mysteries. In these maps and records, for those who can understand them, lie the first glimpses of new and vast countries. In these maps, and in these notes and drawings, there are treasures and wonders." He looked at me, intently. "And that," he said, "is the second reason I took the ring."
"I do not understand," I said.
"I did not expect to survive this journey, nor to return," he said. "I am pleased that I have come this far, that I have found the source of the Ua."
"Yes?" I said.
"I took the ring," he said, "not only to facilitate my journey, but that you, or another, would follow, that there would be someone who could bring my maps and notes back to civilization."
"You fled," I said, "fearing me."
Shaba smiled. "The Ua," said he, "seems a strange avenue of escape. No, my friend, I did not flee. Rather I began my voyage of exploration, my expedition into the interior."
"What of the moneys, those vast sums wrought from the Kurii, the notes negotiated in Schendi?" I asked.
"They were to defray the costs of outfitting the expedition, of hiring the men," he said. "Surely you do not object to my making use of the funds of Kurii for such a purpose. They should be pleased to have made their contribution to so noble a project."
"You distribute your treacheries impartially," I said. "Doubtless that is to your credit."
"Do not think too poorly of me, Tarl," said Shaba. "This was to me the opportunity of a lifetime. If I have erred, I have erred in the cause of my caste and in that, more generally, of humankind." He regarded me, a little sadly. "What do you think Priest-Kings would do with the ring?" he asked. "It would not be important to them. But to me, to men, it is momentous. Indeed, I doubt that Priest-Kings would even wish to permit the use of the ring to men. It seems possible to me they would regard its use as contravening their structures on human technology."